Samantha Baskind, Ph.D.
S_BASKIND.jpg
 Title: Distinguished Full Professor
 Dept: Art & Design
 Office: MB 233
 Phone: 216-687-2096
 Email: S.BASKIND@csuohio.edu
 Web: http://csuohio.academia.edu/SamanthaBaskind
 Address: 2121 Euclid Ave. MB 233, Cleveland, OH 44115

Courses Taught

Publications

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Research Keywords:
art, art history, Jewish art, American art, modern art, Confederate monuments, Holocaust studies, Jewish studies, comics and graphic novels
 
Education:
Ph.D., Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2001
M.A., Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996
B.A., Art History and English, University of Pennsylvania, 1992
 
Brief Bio:
Samantha Baskind joined the faculty at CSU in August 2004, having previously taught at the University of Miami (where she held a joint appointment in art history and Judaic studies), James Madison University, and the University of Pittsburgh. Her courses include Twentieth-Century Art, American Visual Culture, and Nineteenth-Century Art, and her most recent seminars are American Art and the Great Depression, Art and the Holocaust, and Jewish American Art and Culture.

Her research mostly focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish American art and culture. Presentations on these subjects have been made, to name a few, at the annual conferences of the College Art Association, Association for Jewish Studies, World Congress of Jewish Studies (in Israel), American Academy of Religion, and Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies. She has also lectured widely at universities, museums, and congregations throughout the United States and abroad, including Stanford University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Oxford University (England), University of Graz (Austria), SWPS Uniwersytet Humanistycznospoleczny (Poland), Simon Dubnow Institute (Germany), and Bar Ilan University (Israel), among many others.

Her book, Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (2004), was funded by grants from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and American Council of Learned Societies, the Jewish Historical Society of New York, and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, in addition to receiving a Koret Jewish Studies Publications Program award. She is sole author of Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists (2007), a 2006-7 College and Research Libraries selected reference work. A co-edited volume with Ranen Omer-Sherman, The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (2008), is considered the foundational volume in the field. Jewish Art: A Modern History, coauthored with Larry Silver was published in 2011. Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America (2014) considers the proliferation of biblical themes by Jewish painters, printmakers, sculptors, and book illustrators. This book has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. Her most recently published book, The Warsaw Ghetto in American Art and Culture (2018), examines the ghetto's diverse meanings in American culture by paying close attention to how its story has been told, retold, and remembered in fine art, book illustrations, film, television, radio, theater, fiction, poetry, and comics. Recent articles have appeared in American Art, History of Photography, Winterthur Portfolio, and Jewish Social Studies, among other venues. Baskind served as editor for U.S. art for the 26-volume revised edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica (2006) and is also the editor of Pennsylvania State University Press's book series: "Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination." Her current book project, about the once prominent but now largely forgotten 19th-century sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, seeks to reconstruct his body of work, explore the influence of his Jewish identity on his art, and more broadly, to investigate the country's effort to memorialize the Confederacy, through art, in the years after the Civil War. This project has been funded by the Southern Jewish Historical Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

She served as editor for U.S. art for the 22-volume revised edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica and is currently series editor of Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination, published by Penn State University Press.

https://www.psupress.org/books/series/book_SeriesDimyonot.html

As an active public scholar, she regularly writes for the mainstream press. Recent articles have appeared in TIME, Smithsonian Magazine, and the Washington Post.
 
Honors and Awards:
-Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (2020-21)

-Research grant, Southern Jewish Historical Society (Fall 2019)

-Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings from the Bible: named as one of the top ten art events in Northeast Ohio for 2016 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer: http://www.cleveland.com/arts/index.ssf/2016/12/arts_year_in_review_2016_from_muralsl_to_mothersbaugh_a_visual_art_feast_to_remember.html

-Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings from the Bible and Archie Rand: The Book of Judith, combined shows, featured by the Forward as one of the top Jewish cultural moments of 2016, throughout the United States:
http://forward.com/series/best-of/2016/archie-rands-biblical-art/

-Distinguished Faculty Award for Research, Cleveland State University (2014)

-Fellowship, 2013 Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar for University Faculty, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington, D.C. (Summer 2013)

-Fellowship, Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin (Spring 2013)

-Fellowship, Seventeenth Annual Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization, Holocaust Educational Foundation, Northwestern University (Summer 2012)

-Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities (2009-10)

-Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, publication subvention, Jewish Art: A Modern History (April 2010)

-Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Grant (2008)

-Cleveland State University Faculty Research Development Award (2007-9)

-Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists, a College and Research Libraries Selected Reference Work, 2006-7 (September 2007)

-Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, publication subvention, The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (September 2007)

-Fellowship, Society for the Preservation of American Modernists (Summer 2005)

-Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture fellowship (Summer 2004)

-Koret Jewish Studies Publications Program Award for Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (July 2003)

-Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, publication subvention for color plates, Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art (December 2002)

-Visiting Fellow, Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, University of Miami (2002-03)

-American Council of Learned Societies/Terra Foundation for the Arts Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in American Art (2000-01)

-UNC Art Department Non-Service Dissertation Grant (1999-2000)

-UNC Graduate School Off-Campus Dissertation Fellowship (Spring 1999)

-Malcolm H. Stern Dissertation Fellowship, Jewish Historical Society of New York (Fall 1998)

-UNC Graduate School Educational Enhancement Award (Spring 1997)

-Full tuition and stipend fellowship, UNC Art Department (1994-2000)
 
Creative and Activities:
SERIES EDITOR:

Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination. Pennsylvania State University Press (2012-present)

https://www.psupress.org/books/series/book_SeriesDimyonot.html

-Vol. 1: David Stern, Christoph Markschies, and Sarit Shalev-Eyni, eds., The Monk's Haggadah (2015)

-Vol. 2: Ranen Omer-Sherman, Imagining the Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature and Film (2015)

-Vol. 3: Jordan D. Finkin, An Inch or Two of Time: Time and Space in Jewish Modernisms (2015)

-Vol. 4: Ilan Stavans and Marcelo Brodsky, Once @ 9:53am (2016)

-Vol. 5: Ben Schachter, Image, Action and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art (2017)

-Vol. 6: Mark Podwal, Hebrew Melodies (2019)

-Vol. 7: Irene Eber, Judaism and China (2019)

-Vol. 8: Jonathan K. Crane, ed., Judaism, Race, and Ethics: Conversations and Questions (2020)

-Vol. 9: Yael Halevi-Wise, The Multilayered Imagination of A.B. Yehoshua (2020)

-Vol. 10: Laura Levitt, The Objects That Remain: Holocaust Evidence and Criminal Archives (2020)

-Vol. 11: Lawrence Fine, ed., Friendship in Jewish History, Religion, and Culture (2021)

-Vol. 12: David S. Herrstrom and Andrew D. Scrimgeour, The Prophetic Quest: The Windows of Jacob Landau (2021)

-Vol. 13: Hasan Sarbakhsian, Parveneh Vahidmanesh, and Lior B. Sternfeld, Jews of Iran: A Photographic Chronicle (2022)

-Vol. 14: Alan Mintz, American Hebraist: Essays on Agnon and Modern Jewish Literature, edited by Beverly Bailis and David Stern (2022)

-Vol. 15: J.H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree (2022)

EXHIBITIONS CURATED AND ACCOMPANYING CATALOGUES:

Beyond Borders: The Art of Siona Benjamin.
Exhibition venues:
-Galleries at CSU, Cleveland, OH: January 17-March 25, 2023
-Skirball Museum, Cincinnati, OH: April 20-July 30, 2023

Archie Rand: Sixty Paintings from the Bible. Exhibition catalogue. Cleveland: Galleries at CSU, 2016.
Exhibition venues:
-Skirball Museum, Cincinnati, OH: February 18-June 28, 2020 (extended to January 31, 2021 due to COVID-19)
-American Jewish Museum, Pittsburgh, PA: January 9-March 31, 2017
-Galleries at CSU, Cleveland, OH: September 1-October 8, 2016

Archie Rand: The Book of Judith. Exhibition catalogue. Cleveland: Galleries at CSU, 2016.
Exhibition venue:
-Galleries at CSU, Cleveland, OH: September 1-October 8, 2016

VIRTUAL EXHIBITIONS:

-An Enduring Monument: Moses Jacob Ezekiel¿s Religious Liberty (1876). National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, PA (November 2020).
https://www.nmajh.org/exhibitions/enduring-monument/

-Susanna and the Elders. The Visual Commentary on Scripture (London: King's College, 2020).
https://thevcs.org/susanna-and-elders
 
Professional Affiliations:
-American Jewish Historical Society
-Association of Historians of American Art
-Association for Jewish Studies
-College Art Association
-Southern Jewish Historical Society
 
Professional Service:
-Editorial board, AmericanJewishStudies.org (2020-present)

-Editorial board, Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, Jewish Women¿s Archive (2018-present)

-Art Advisor, Audrey Flack estate, New York, NY (2018-present)

-Mentor, Association for Jewish Studies program for junior scholars (2017-present)

-Advisory Group, Yiddish Book Center Teacher Resources program (2017-present)

-Advisory Board, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies (2016-present)

-Advisory Board, Jewish Art Salon (2016-present)

-Distinguished Lectureship Program, Association for Jewish Studies (2016-present)

-Advisory Network, Initiative for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion, Yale University (2011-present)

-Editorial Board, AJS Perspectives (2017-present)

-Conference committee, American Jewish Historical Society Biennial Conference, New York Center for Jewish History (2019-20)

-Advisor, Cleveland Arts Prize, Past Masters Celebration Visual Arts Prize (2020 competition cycle)

-Application evaluator, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Fellowships (2019-20 cycle, 2018-19 cycle)

-Application evaluator, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Awards (Fall 2018)

-Juror, Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards, category of ¿Jews and the Arts: Visual, Performance, and Music¿ (Summer 2018)

-Advisor, Audrey Flack: Queen of Hearts, documentary directed by Deborah Shaffer (2016-19)

Trailer: https://www.audreyflackfilm.com

-Art consultant, My Dear Children, documentary (2018). Cliff Hackel and LeAnn Dance, Co-producers/directors

Trailer: www.mydearchildrendoc.com

-Art Advisor, Ben-Zion estate, New York, NY (2017-18)

-Division Chair for Jews, Film, and the Arts, Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference (2014-2017)

-Academic Council, American Jewish Historical Society (2011-14)

-Advisor, New Media in Jewish Studies Collaborative Project, Columbia University (2012-14)

-Application evaluator, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, Washington, D.C. (Summer 2012)

-Grant evaluation for Israel Science Foundation, Art History section (Spring 2012)

-Advisory Board, Stillman-Lack Foundation (2009-2011)

-Editorial Board, Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry (2006-2010)

-Advisory Group, for exhibition ¿Hugging and Wrestling: Contemporary Photography and Video from Israel,¿ Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland (2009)

-Editor for U.S. art, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 26 volumes (2004-2006)